


Refuge

by alderations



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Weather, Fluff, M/M, Road Trips, Tornadoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 14:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: Lightning illuminated the sky around the rattling car, and to his right—in the distance, but not far—Hanzo saw a massive wall of clouds, just for the split second of the lightning strike, touching down on the earth at a single point and rushing like a river of wind.***Hanzo discovers that he is, apparently, afraid of tornadoes.





	Refuge

They were a good hundred miles away from the Texas border when the rain started. Hanzo loved rain—what kind of quasi-storm-god-host would he be if he didn’t?—so it wasn’t an issue, especially since he didn’t actually have to worry about driving. Jesse, Once and Always King of Insufferable Roadtrips, had that covered. Drifting in and out of sleep in the passenger seat, Hanzo debated reaching over to hold Jesse’s hand, but didn’t have the energy to move that far.

 

It had been a long mission, and the sun-baked heat south of San Antonio had worn on Hanzo within hours of their arrival. As soon as he was defending vital Overwatch resources in that heat, on a rooftop with his hair dripping sweat down his neck through the afternoon, he decided that he would never set foot in Texas again. Even if he wasn’t standing out in it, the rain was welcome—anything but brilliant sun soothed his cranky soul somewhat. What the rain didn’t take care of, Jesse could handle with ease.

 

Lena would pick them up in Roswell, supposedly so that they could get far enough from their camp for the last few days to avoid suspicion. They all knew that she was there for alien-related tourism. If Winston didn’t have such a soft spot for Lena, he probably wouldn’t have allowed it, but Jesse seemed just as excited, so Hanzo played along. He planned to have a long, cool, well-deserved nap in the  _ Orca  _ while the two of them bickered over conspiracy theories in the New Mexico heat.

 

Hanzo was just imagining the incredulous look on Jesse’s face when a thunderclap exploded over the car. They swerved, because even Jesse McCree was not totally immune to surprise, and Hanzo’s shoulder collided with the car door hard enough to bruise. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and sat up straight, clearing his throat so that Jesse could hear him over the now torrential-rain. “When did it start thundering?”

 

“‘Bout an hour ago,” Jesse rasped. His voice was tight with stress, and Hanzo crossed his legs anxiously. “I’m surprised that you slept through it.”

 

“I did not think that I was asleep.”

 

Jesse didn’t respond, because his focus was drawn to the road once again as the hovercar slipped and skidded over the wet highway. “Could you scoot your seat back, sweetheart?”

 

“Why?” Hanzo asked, already doing as Jesse said. Not that he would ever admit to it. Jesse slammed on the gas, even as the car continued to lose traction on the slick road, and Hanzo’s stomach flipped a few times before settling uncomfortably in his throat.

 

Once again, no explanation was offered, though this time Jesse reached over and squeezed Hanzo’s forearm before veering onto an exit and down a darker, narrower country road. “If I tell you to get down,” he barked over the roar of fresh thunder, “get down on the floor of the car, okay? No matter what. Just shield your head and stay down.”

 

“Jesse—”

 

Lightning illuminated the sky around the rattling car, and to his right—in the distance, but not far—Hanzo saw a massive wall of clouds, just for the split second of the lightning strike, touching down on the earth at a single point and  _ rushing  _ like a river of wind. He grabbed the chicken bar with one hand and the gear shift with the other, desperate for anything to hold onto. “Jess, that was—that’s a—that was a fucking  _ tornado,  _ we need to get out of the open  _ now—” _

 

“What do you think I’m doing?” Jesse interrupted, voice grim but as gentle as he could be at that volume. “We’re gonna be fine.”

 

Hanzo could not believe that, but he was starting to hyperventilate too hard to argue. A hovercar could handle slippery ground better than something with wheels, but when the weather was this severe, the sensors started to fail; Hanzo was convinced that they would go careening into a ditch at any second as Jesse gunned it down the country road. There was light—artificial, not lightning—farther down the road, which Hanzo focused on even as his growing paranoia fought to convince him that it was only a mirage. Not a mirage, but some sort of terror-fueled hallucination. He could hear the wind screaming all around the car, and the engine struggling to keep up with Jesse’s heavy foot. If he strained his ears, he thought that he could hear old, dry trees cracking and shattering on the ground with the force of the wind.

 

Loath as Hanzo was to admit it, Jesse’s wild driving was exactly what they needed at the moment. The queasy yellow of a Shell station came into relief against the storm, alongside a small and run-down building. As Jesse finally slowed the car and turned into the parking lot, Hanzo feared for a moment that he would stop and get out to pump gas, and he had to fight back images of his boyfriend gobbled by the tornado and ripped away from him.

 

They parked as close as possible to the gas station and ran inside, Jesse only inches behind Hanzo’s adrenaline-fuelled whirlwind. The door slammed shut and shuddered in its frame. When Hanzo looked up and wiped the rain from face, the cashier was regarding him with a look that suggested that she would rather they have stayed out in the storm, come what may.

 

Hanzo headed straight for the bathroom, away from the cashier’s sullen glare and, hopefully, the tornado. It was quieter once the door shut behind him, and then he turned to find that Jesse had followed his every step, nearly crowding him against the sink as he pressed the broad mass of his body up against Hanzo’s.

 

If anyone else were to be so insistently in his space, Hanzo would have put a few fingers through their trachea, but Jesse knew by now that full-body contact could sometimes comfort him under drastic circumstances. Hanzo leaned into the pressure of Jesse’s thick chest against his own. Texas would not be a good place to die, but if he had to choose, Jesse’s warm embrace was a convincing option.

 

Once his racing heart slowed to what felt like a tremble, Hanzo realized that he couldn’t actually hear the wind anymore. “Did it pass already?” he murmured, focusing on the way his lips brushed against Jesse’s damp shirt.

 

“I doubt it. I don’t wanna be, uh, insensitive, but it’s not as bad as you think, pumpkin.”

 

Hanzo frowned and pulled back to look up at Jesse. “What do you mean? It—it could kill us, we should be—”

 

“Sure, it  _ could,  _ but it probably won’t.” Jesse smoothed Hanzo’s mussed hair with one hand. “I’ve dealt with more’n my fair share of tornadoes, and I made it out of ‘em just fine. They’re normal out here.”

 

Apparently, Hanzo’s face said what words could not, because Jesse just smirked and kissed him on the forehead. “I know, America is a dystopian hellscape and all that. Anyway, I’m hungry. D’you wanna get somethin’ to eat?”

 

Hanzo mumbled an affirmative, and they shuffled out of the bathroom to peruse the aisles of the gas station. Jesse ended up buying as many PopTarts as he could hold in his arms, as well as a bottle of water, which he presented to Hanzo uncapped and with fervor.

 

“Thanks,” he mumbled before taking a long gulp of water, eyes closed and hands still shaking. When he looked up again, Jesse was eyeing him with obvious concern. “What?”

 

“We really are gonna be alright, Han,” Jesse assured. “I think the worst of the storm has already passed.” When Hanzo only stared at him, unsure of Jesse’s strange ability to detect his every fear and emotion, Jesse rambled on. “When you get real upset or—or scared, you kinda… it’s like you turn your face off. You’re so expressive and emotional most of the time, and then you just go blank, and it always feels like there’s somethin’ really wrong.”

 

Realization slammed Hanzo in the gut. By now, almost forty years old, he knew that he shut down when he was upset or afraid, but no one else had ever figured it out, as far as he knew. Even Genji would ignore him in his worst moments, unable to tell that Hanzo’s stony face was a sign of internal panic. But Jesse knew better. Unexpected emotion welled in Hanzo’s chest, and he faceplanted in Jesse’s shoulder again, desperate for a moment of safety. “Thank you.”

 

“Any time, sweet thing,” Jesse replied. “Though, right this minute, I think we oughta get out of here, if the tornado’s actually passed. That cashier looks like she’s about to murder us both, bounty or no.”

 

Hanzo grunted. “That is probably for the best.”

**Author's Note:**

> BASED ON A TRUE FUCKING STORY. I'm scared to death of tornadoes, and my mom thinks that the best way to deal with her children's debilitating phobias is to just brush us off and downplay it as much as possible. So when we got stranded in a gas station in rural Tennessee because a tornado was blowing right past us, I totally shut down while my mom and brother just stood around eating PopTarts. Also, the cashier giving us the "then perish" look. That happened. I have other horrible road trip stories, but that's one of the more vivid memories.
> 
> I sound so melodramatic but I am REALLY SCARED OF TORNADOES! We don't get them in Chicago!! It's traumatic!
> 
> anyway, that's out of my system. comment if u desire? and see me on tumblr [@genderfluidjessemccree!](genderfluidjessemccree.tumblr.com)


End file.
